Article RSS Feed

None Meaner...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:07:18 GMT

The Flaming Wall of Death...

blog comments powered by Disqus

Brown Sauce for life

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:18:27 GMT

First up install Radiant...

$ gem install radiant

and you'll also need the heroku gem...

$ gem install heroku

you might need to install a few dependencies for radiant to work notably some cucumber versions won't play ball, mine seemed happy straight off. So create a radiant app...

$ radiant oohsaucy

$ cd oohsaucy

Assuming you have git installed on your system

$ git init

$ git add .

$ git commit -m "The all new Ooh Saucy app"

Now time to do some Heroku magic

$ heroku create

$ git remote add heroku git@heroku.com:oohsaucy.git

so now we have version control hooked up to Heroku's repo we can start developing the app.

First thing is to configure gems so that when we push to Heroku it knows our app's dependencies...

$ vi .gems

and add the lines

rails -v=2.3.5

radiant

save the file

$ git add .gems

$ git commit -m "Gem dependencies for Heroku deployment"

now do your thing with the application locally and when you are ready to hit the big red launch button...

$ git push heroku master

and because it's a radiant app we need to bootstrap the production db

$ heroku rake db:create:all

$ heroku rake db:migrate

$ heroku rake production db:bootstrap

now you might want to seed a bit of data you set up in development (no doubt some people will frown at this, frown away, this is about expedient development not chin scratching theory).

$ heroku db:push

this exports your local db to heroku's production db.

You're done. Heroku will give you back the url your app is deployed to in the console so you can configure your domain name DNS accordingly.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Simple content management for Rails

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:56:53 GMT

I didn't need a full blown CMS to meet the requirements for my current project, I just needed to make some paragraphs and static pages content manageable. The app uses restful-authentication to define user roles so I already had an Admin user type as part of the system, I've also used the tiny_mce gem for the content manageable fields. So how to add manageable content slots to a pretty standard Rails app.

I started with my model Content :

class Content < ActiveRecord::Base

named_scope :latest_by_key, lambda { |key| {

:conditions => ['contents.key = ? AND contents.status = ?', key, 'live'],

:order => 'updated_at DESC'

} }

end

Then a module called ContentManageable :

module ContentManageable

def get_default_contents

@contents = get_contents({})

end

def get_default_content

@content = get_content({})

end

# TODO: call send against contents.first to retrieve a particular field?

def get_contents(options)

key = options[:key].nil? ? action_key : options[:key]

all = options[:first] ? false : true

contents = Content.latest_by_key(key)

all ? contents : contents.first

end

def get_content(options)

get_contents(options.merge!({:first => true}))

end

private

def action_key

"#{self.controller_name}_#{self.action_name}"

end

The idea here being that all content has a key and the default key is in the format controller_action

In my ApplicationController I do this:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

include ContentManageable

# Automatically retieve default content using the "controller_action" compound key.

cattr_accessor :auto_content

@@auto_content = false

before_filter :get_default_content, :if => :auto_content

...

def self.auto_content

@@auto_content = true

end

...

and this in contents_helper.rb:

module ContentsHelper

def default_content

cmsify(@content, nil) if defined? @content

end

def default_contents

@contents if defined? @contents

end

def content_keys(key)

keys = key.split '_'

{ :controller => keys[0], :action => keys[1] }

end

def cmsify(content, key)

text = content.nil? ? '' : content.body

if current_user and current_user.has_role? "admin"

if content.nil?

key = action_key if key.nil?

text = "  #{link_to '[add text]', new_admin_content_path({:key => key})}"

else

text += "  #{link_to '[edit]', edit_admin_content_path(content)}"

end

text

end

private

def action_key

"#{controller_name}_#{action_name}"

end

So now any controller I want to auto content manage I can simple add auto_content at the top of the class and that controller will automatically look for content under the compound controller_action key, e.g. home_index. I place a <%= default_content %> in my view in the appropriate place to output the content body and as Admin either a link to edit this text or a link to add content to the slot.

(Should mention that admin/contents_controller.rb is a standard admin-role controller which handles standard CRUD for the content model.)

Then there's a whole bunch of other pages which are what you'd call static site pages, you know, Terms and Conditions, FAQ, About Us, that sorta stuff. For this I created another contents_controller.rb, this one is not an admin protected one, it simply has a show method:

class ContentsController < ApplicationController

def show

@content = get_content({:key => params[:id]})

end

which means for an arbitrary key like about_us I can call the url http://localhost:3000/contents/about_us and my view will render the content body effectively giving me the ability to create any necessary static pages for the site.

There are lots of bits that need tidying on but in less than a day I've got a simple way to handle paragraphs and complete pages which is a minor triumph for a relative Rails noob (I used shoulda_machinist_generator for the content scaffold so it's accompanied by unit and functional tests). The code duplication of the action_key method is crap so I'll work that out sometime soon.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Le Mans Spotters Guide

Thu, 27 May 2010 04:14:18 GMT

Guerilla BMX

Mon, 17 May 2010 08:28:29 GMT

Shit that do fall out of my head

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:56:55 GMT

Bare Git Repo

Posted by Steve on August 10, 2010 | Comments | Read full article

Geokit :auto_geocode testing

Posted by Steve on June 29, 2010 | Comments | Read full article

Geokit, acts_as_mappable :through with distance attribute

Posted by Steve on June 25, 2010 | Comments | Read full article

Javascript loop efficiency

Posted by Steve on May 13, 2010 | Comments | Read full article

I thought I was a proficient javascript coder. Singletons, namespaces, closures, class heirarchies, I'd covered them all. Then I sign up for Stephen Chapman's Javascript newsletter at Abount.com and felt the shame. I didn't really understand the cost of a basic 'for' loop.

Ruby Debugger Commands

Thu, 06 May 2010 02:20:06 GMT

Ruby-debug commands

b[reak]
list breakpoints
b[reak] [file|class:]LINE|METHOD [if expr]
b[reak] [class.]LINE|METHOD [if expr]
set breakpoint to some position, optionally if expr == true
cat[ch]
show catchpoint
cat[ch] EXCEPTION
set catchpoint to an exception
disp[lay] EXPRESSION add expression into display expression list
undisp[lay][ nnn]
delete one particular or all display expressions if no expression number given
del[ete][ nnn]
delete some or all breakpoints (get the number using "break")
c[ont]
run until program ends or hit breakpoint
r[un]
alias for cont
s[tep][ nnn]
step (into methods) one line or till line nnn
n[ext][ nnn]
go over one line or till line nnn
w[here]
displays stack
f[rame]
alias for where
l[ist][ (-|nn-mm)]
list program, - list backwards, nn-mm list given lines. No arguments keeps listing
up[ nn]
move to higher frame
down[ nn]
move to lower frame
fin[ish]
return to outer frame
q[uit]
exit from debugger
v[ar] g[lobal]
show global variables
v[ar] l[ocal]
show local variables
v[ar] i[nstance] OBJECT
show instance variables of object
v[ar] c[onst] OBJECT
show constants of object
m[ethod] i[nstance] OBJECT
show methods of object
m[ethod] CLASS|MODULE
show instance methods of class or module
th[read] l[ist]
list all threads
th[read] c[ur[rent]]
show current thread
th[read] [sw[itch]] nnn
switch thread context to nnn
th[read] stop nnn
stop thread nnn
th[read] resume nnn
resume thread nnn
p EXPRESSION
evaluate expression and print its value
pp EXPRESSSION
evaluate expression and print its value
h[elp]
print this help
RETURN KEY
redo previous command. Convenient when using list, step, next, up, down,
EVERYHTING ELSE
evaluate

Happy debugging!

Don't try this at home kids...

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:19:50 GMT

Don't try this at home kids...

Mean Wheels

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:27:50 GMT

Mean Wheels

blog comments powered by Disqus

Active Record for Javascript

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:32:25 GMT

Active Record for Javascript gives you persistence for your javascript applications with an Active Record twist.

From their docs...

Defining Your Model

ActiveRecord classes are created using the ActiveRecord.create method which takes three arguments: the name of the table that the class will reference, a field definition hash, and optionally a hash of instance methods that will be added to the class. If the table does not exist it will be automically created.

 
var User = ActiveRecord.create('users',{  
    username: '',  
    password: '',  
    post_count: 0,  
    profile: {  
        type: 'TEXT',  
        value: ''  
    }  
},{  
    getProfileWordCount: function(){  
        return this.get('profile').split(/\s+/).length;  
    }  
});

Class & Instance Methods

JavaScript does not have true static methods or classes, but in this case any method of the User variable above is refered to as a class method, and any method of a particular user (that the User class would find) is refered to as an instance method. The most important class methods are create() and find():

 
var jessica = User.create({  
    username: 'Jessica',  
    password: 'rabbit'  
});

Add new class or instance methods to all ActiveRecord models in the following way:

 
ActiveRecord.ClassMethods.myClassMethod = function(){  
    //this === model class  
};  
ActiveRecord.InstanceMethods.myInstanceMethod = function(){  
    // this === model instance  
};

Getters & Setters

It is extremely important to note that all of the attributes/columns of the user are accessible directly for reading (for convenience), but cannot be written directly. You must use the set() method to set an attribute, you should use the get() method to access all attributes, but you must use the get() method if your attribute/column is a method of the object or a JavaScript reserved keyword ('save,'initialize','default', etc).

 
jessica.username // 'Jessica'  
jessica.get('username'); // 'Jessica'  
jessica.username = 'new username';  
jessica.get('username'); // 'Jessica'  
jessica.set('username','new username');  
jessica.get('username'); // 'new username'

When Data is Persisted

Data is only persisted to the database in three cases: when you explicitly call save() on a record, when you call create() on a record, or create a child record through a relationship (the method will contain the word "create" in this case), or when you call updateAttribute() on a record. In the case of the latter, only the attribute you update will be saved, the rest of the record will not be persisted to the database, even if changes have been made. Calling save() may add an "id" property to the record if it does not exist, but if there are no errors, it's state will otherwise be unchanged. You can call refresh() on any record to ensure it is not out of synch with your database at any time.

Finding Records

If you created the User class using the define() method you automatically have free "finder" methods:

 
User.findByUsername('Jessica');  
User.findAllByPassword(''); //finds all with blank passwords

Otherwise you can use the base find() method, which takes a hash of options, a numeric id or a complete SQL string:

 
var posts = Post.find({  
    all: true,  
    order: 'id DESC',  
    limit: 10  
});